Greco’s pitch: Free rent for a year

The 216-unit Flux apartment building is set to open in the Uptown area of south Minneapolis in early 2012. (Staff photo: Bill Klotz)

$20,000 offer comes in tight market

There may be no such thing as a free lunch, but in the Uptown area of south Minneapolis there is a chance for a year of free rent.

Minneapolis-based Greco is offering to one lucky winner a rent-free year — and a free parking space — worth $20,000 at its new Flux apartment project, set to open early next year. The 216-unit project at 2838 Fremont Ave. S. is one of the largest apartment projects under construction across the metro.

It’s not uncommon for apartment landlords to offer similar incentives, known as “concessions” in the industry, when vacancy rates are higher. But as vacancy tightens, owners don’t need perks to lure tenants. In the current climate, apartment vacancy is at a relatively low 3.1 percent as of the end of March, according to Minneapolis-based Marquette Advisors.

Rogers said the eye-opening free rent deal is a marketing effort to create interest in the project, not a sign that they’re desperate to attract tenants to the Flux building.

“We don’t anticipate doing any concessions for our lease-up. Based on what we’re seeing, the lease-up should be very strong,” Rogers said.

Brent Wittenberg, vice president with Minneapolis-based Marquette Advisors, said that in the current market, concessions “continue to burn off.” In an email to Finance & Commerce, Wittenberg said Marquette Advisors calculates that current average concessions work out to just $265 on a 12-month apartment lease.

That’s a far cry from $20,000.

The unit being offered in the Flux contest is a 745-square-foot apartment with a washer and dryer, a courtyard balcony with a view of Uptown and a heated, underground parking space.

To enter the contest, applicants have to visit the Flux booth at the upcoming Uptown Art Fair and “like” the Flux project on the Facebook social media website. At an event in mid-October, contestants will have a chance to try issued key cards at a door in the Flux project.

Greco broke ground on the project in November 2010. Residents can begin moving into Flux in January 2012; the entire project is set for completion in March 2012.

Rogers said monthly rent at the apartments will range from $1,000 to $3,000, with the average around $1,500 to $1,600 per month. That’s at the upper end of the local rental market. The latest numbers from Marquette Advisors reported an average monthly rent of $916 per month in the Twin Cities at the end of the first quarter.

Greco previously developed another large-scale south Minneapolis apartment project, the 242-unit Blue at 2900 Aldrich Ave. S. Blue project was completed in 2008 and is currently 97 percent leased.

Greco had a similar free-rent-for-a-year contest for a unit in Blue when it opened. The concept was built around a scavenger hunt in the neighborhood.

“I want to say we had about 100 to 200 contestants that ran around to the various stops on the list,” Rogers recalled.

Rogers said Greco is confident in the depth of the demand for the project, noting that it has now been a few years since any new apartments have opened.

“Blue and its competitors are all very well occupied,” Rogers said.

Acknowledging the growing number of apartment projects that are being proposed by local developers, Rogers said he thinks Flux is well timed.

“It’s much easier to propose a project than it is to close it and get it underway,” Rogers said.

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Who thought up the name for this apartment building??? This is from the Webster dictionary. Yeah, I want to live there…..

Definition of FLUX
1: a flowing of fluid from the body: as a : diarrhea b : dysentery
2: a continuous moving on or passing by (as of a stream)
3: a continued flow : flood
4a : influx b : change, fluctuation
5: a substance used to promote fusion (as of metals or minerals); especially : one (as rosin) applied to surfaces to be joined by soldering, brazing, or welding to clean and free them from oxide and promote their union
6: the rate of transfer of fluid, particles, or energy across a given surface